GAME`S FATHER SEES HIS BABY GROW UP

John LeptichCHICAGO TRIBUNE

He is to indoor soccer what George Halas was to pro football, yet few people have ever heard of Ed Tepper. Nine years after organizing the Major Indoor Soccer League, Tepper was the center of attention for about an hour one afternoon during the league`s recent All-Star week in Los Angeles.

Once a year, at the MISL`s midseason classic, Tepper fondly recalls the founding of professional sports` youngest league to whoever will listen.

''It`s my child, my baby,'' Tepper said. ''I love this league. When I saw the first professional indoor game ever played in this country, I was sure that a league would make it.''

The game Tepper saw was on Feb. 11, 1974, at the Spectrum in

Philadelphia. He watched the host Atoms of the North American Soccer League lose to the Moscow Red Army team 6-3. Tepper and his friend, Philadelphia attorney Earl Foreman, were among a crowd the Philadelphia Inquirer said was 11,790.

Although the first professional indoor game played in North America was on Feb. 7, 1974, with the Red Army team beating a team of NASL All-Stars 8-4 in Toronto, the sport dates to at least the 1950s and the formation of the amateur National Indoor Soccer League in Chicago.

Even the game Tepper and Foreman saw in Philadelphia was a far cry from what indoor soccer is today. It looked more like ice hockey: There were three 20-minute periods, no red line and 4-by-16-foot goals. But it caught Tepper`s fancy enough for him to give a new league a go.

''When I go to a game of any kind, I watch the fans,'' Tepper said. ''In this Russian game, the fans were going crazy. Ed Snider (Foreman`s brother-in- law and the Philadelphia Flyers` owner) was with me. He enjoyed the game. He said: `They don`t have to wear helmets and you can see their faces. You`re gonna get between 10 and 12 goals a game.`

''That stuck in my mind. I figured if you could get scoring in soccer, people would accept it. Besides, there was little for the American soccer player and fan. I saw indoor soccer as a form of hockey where you could see the puck.''

After what Tepper remembers as a year and a half of work, the MISL was born Sept. 30, 1978, with franchises in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Houston, Cincinnati and New York.

''We almost didn`t get started,'' Tepper said. ''I went to (then-commissioner) Phil Woosnam of the NASL when we were planning and wanted to hook up with him. I thought it would be logical, using the same players in many of the same cities.

''I told Phil that I was going to redevelop the game from the low goal sizes and wanted support. I didn`t get it.

''Independently, the NASL owners knew it made sense. Collectively, they were scared. They felt that they were the established league and all I was trying to do was develop something.

''In September, 1978, Woosnam said the NASL wouldn`t start its indoor play until 1980. We got started right away.''

Since then, the NASL has died and MISL franchises have come and gone, the most recent being the New York Express, which disbanded two weeks ago. Does Tepper view his creation as something of a problem child?

''I still believe indoor soccer is a product that`s gonna sell,'' he says. ''We`ve gone through some growing pains, but what league hasn`t? In some cities it will work, in others not. Television is lagging behind, but I think it will get there in time.

''When we got this thing going nearly 10 years ago, I thought it would survive. I thought it had the staying power, the longevity. Few sports leagues made it in their first 10 or 20 years.

''The league is here to stay. Soccer in this country is represented by the MISL. It`s a matter of finding solid cities, like Baltimore, Cleveland and Kansas City, which will support the product. It`s a crap shoot, but things look good.''

Would Tepper, who owned the New Jersey Rockets franchise that played the 1981-82 season before folding, ever consider coming back to his creation?

''If I thought it could work in Philly, I`d do it,'' he said. ''But it won`t. There are the Flyers and the 76ers. I`m available to help anyone, anywhere, but my coming back is not in the immediate future. I`m content sitting back, watching my baby grow up.''